The Second Container
Wooden barrels in global trade
from the 1400s to the 1970s

​After the terracotta amphorae, wooden barrels and casks took over the role as the most utilized bulk container throughout the western world.  Initially developed in the early Roman era, their heyday commenced in the late Middle Ages as Europeans ventured forth during the Age of Discovery.  The barrels' unique attributes secured the explorers' foods and liquids, shipboard repair supplies and trade goods.  The Second Container; Wooden barrels in global trade from the 1400s to the 1970s explores the hows and whys of the barrel’s important role over the past 600 years.    
   And what items were transported, stored and aged in wooden barrels?   Not only could barrels contain significant quantities of beer, wine and whiskey, but they also allowed relatively easy movement of those liquids from the places they were made to where they were consumed.   Many of these liquids and related spirits are still aged in oak barrels.
   In the era before refrigeration, salting and fermenting were utilized to preserve foods.  Thus, barrels became the receptacles for salted or brined fish and meats, and fermented vegetables, as well as dry grains and biscuits.     
   Some materials required simply a large container while others needed protection from moisture, pests and pilferage.  Nails and candles needed only a package.  Gunpowder and cement needed to be kept dry.  Honey, butter and tobacco were secure from insects.  And trade goods, such as axe heads or crockery, packed in straw, or coins were safely contained within barrels.  
   Crude oil was initially shipped in barrels.  The unit, a barrel of oil still exists in our lexicon.  For naval stores, the pine resins and tars used to repair ships, barrels were the primary container.
   The book explores the use of the barrel for these and other commodities through the analysis by marine archaeologists of the barrels found on shipwrecks, historical documentation, current academic research, and the author’s vocation as a cooper and the research done while travelling to the world’s wine regions and ancient sites.  Describing not only the physical attributes of the numerous barrels for the particular commodity, the narration examines the people, cultural and political environments in which the casks were being utilized.   The manuscript will be complete with historic photographs, drawings, paintings, diagrams and maps, and will include an index and reference section.